The last I remember Foxconn made the Intel boards anyways. So they weren't truly Intel boards. They just said the specs they wanted and then did they're maybe better quality control. Thats about it iirc.Reply

Foxconn has actually been manufacturing Intel's motherboards since 2001. But that's not all that surprising. I remember reading somewhere Foxconn actually makes about 50% of motherboard PCB's world-wide. What's really interesting is my Intel X58 board says made in Mexico, and according to Wikipedia, Foxconn indeed has computer component manufacturing plants in Juarez and San JeronimoReply

Bios better tested? My DH67CF bricked to an unrecoverable state using one of their bios updates. Several other DH67CF board users bricked theirs too. I had to RMA it to a refurbished one after one week of usage.On the same model, I couldn't use USB 3.0 ports (Renesas) at all because it freezes every damn time I copy large amount (2GB+) of files. I had it replaced 2 times, tried connecting different USB 3.0 HDDs and different flash drives, flashed different firmwares, installed different drivers, nothing worked. Eventually, I got a full refund from intel. Forget about USB 3.0 if you are using DH67CF.And then there's problems with Windows 8 and intel's USB 3.0 eXtensible controllers. They don't supply proper drivers and just tell customers to use the one that's included in Windows 8.Intel motherboards are not what they used to be, and I'm never going to buy intel motherboards again. Actually, I bought an ASUS board with H77 chipset. No more headaches for me.Reply

The last I remember Foxconn made the Apple iPhones anyways. So they aren't truly Apple iPhones.

Foxconn is an electronics manufacturing giant. Many, many companies contract out the manufacturing of their products to Foxconn. There's a big difference between design and manufacturing. Intel motherboards weren't simply rebadged Foxconn motherboards.Reply

Intel boards are all I buy because they are rock solid stable and generally use good quality components like Intel LAN controllers and the higher quality audio codecs. I've had too many problems with the other manufacturers.

Looks like I'll be trial-and-erroring for a new manufacturer after Haswell. Bummer.

Yeah, I always buy Intel boards too because they just work. I've never had a single issue with an Intel board, and frequently have problems with third party boards, even when they're built by the same company.

The SSD comment is because Intel so far doesn't have their own controller in an SSD past the 320. The 320's still a good drive, but I was a big fan of Intel's controllers, and it's weird they just quit making them in favor of using now Sandforce of all things (and it's not like there was no effort in using Sandforce-they spent a year trying to fix Sandforce's bugs).Reply

My company has been an Intel IPD and Gold partner sice Intel initiated the program. Before then we ran the gamut, Gigabyte, MSI etal and while these companies put out some nice boards they, in no way could compare to the stability and durability of the Intel products.

What's more is that NONE of those board companies could compare and probably still don't compare with Intel's support & service. That will be the biggest factor. As an IPD we have a direct line to tech support, advance ship RMA and othe nice program features professional system builder like us needs to compete. Now, if we go back to those other boards we will be relegated back marginal tech support and little or no customer service.

Apart from being rock stable (none of that Fatality/ ROG nonsense thanks) the other big advantage is running Linux without any worries re hardware driver/ compatibility thanks to how closely Intel works with Linux dev...

Well they're not exiting chipsets and given the all-in-one nature of chipsets now-a-days, shouldn't be a problem (fingers crossed) as long as mobo makers look at Intel components first when they want to add additional components beyond the chipset...Reply

I don't use them for personal builds, but they're the only thing we use for workstations at work. Intel boards don't have fancy features, but they just plain work. We still have a pair of Intel D815EGEW boards(Pentium 3) here that work fine. I do not look forward to using third party boards in the price range Intel offered their products at. Other manufacturerd' $50 to $75 boards tend to keel over pretty fast, and you're lucky to get drivers for them after the new line comes out.

I can understand traditional PC companies trying to get away from dying consumer PC markets, but the business world is going to miss them.Reply

Intel are pretty quick to drop development of drivers/firmware for past products. For example, the GMA X3000 in the G965 chipset was advertised as DirectX 10 capable hardware with driver support coming later. They never released a DirectX 10 driver.Reply

I can't say I'm surprised - Intel boards have never had a massive following amongst enthusiasts - probably the only people buying computers in component form at retail these days.

It's kinda sad (funnily enough, I'm writing this from a machine with an Intel board in it - our HTPC) but as you said in the article, the third party boards are stable and complete enough these days that we don't really need Intel themselves in the marketplace. Going back 15 years (which is about when I started building PCs) that definitely wasn't the case!

This whole concept of integration that's going on with desktops at the moment worries me a little, but then I have to think when I last changed a CPU without also changing the motherboard it sat in - I think it was a Super7 board going from a K6-2 to a K6-3!Reply

It's really true. By the time one is usually ready for a CPU upgrade (i.e. something is significant enough for an upgrade), you almost always need a new motherboard because of new ram standard, i/O standard, or new CPU socket. The CPU upgrade is a myth....Reply

Hmm, unfortunately that's true. I think it's a shame that more enthusiasts weren't concerned with stability first. So many seem focused on overclocking, which we now know damanges a part even if it's stable. I've always figured if I have the money to destroy a CPU, I have the money to just buy a new CPU when I need something faster.Reply

Because we still stay stable, and several years ahead of the performance curve.We always knew it would things out faster, but other parts of our PC die well before our CPU, so we don't care if we wear it out early. The worst case is we need to drop the clock speed, which means we're still running it faster than you when you replace yours. Reply

actually I remember in the 1990s (I think that's when Intel moved into the business) that Intel motherboards were the gold standard for reliability and quality (I actually still think this). The belief was/is they made the chipset, so who better to make the motherboard stable and reliable. Reply

With the debut of solid-caps and other hardy electronics on motherboards and the addition of SOC-like Intel CPUs, the 3rd party manufacturers actually surpass the quality of Intel motherboards. Intel took its sweet time including solid-caps on their motherboards. Not to mention Intel, until recently, forbid overclocking on their motherboards.

There is no reason, not for stability or reliability, to buy a Intel board today. You've bought into their marketing hype or FUD from 10 years ago if you still think Intel boards are the premium models. The Big Three (ASUS/Gigabyte/MSI) have the market cornered and their desktop boards are extremely reliable. Server boards? Supermicro/Tyan dominate the market.

OEMs buy from the Big Three for their desktops and make custom designs for their servers. They won't lose any sleep either.Reply

I have always been an Intel consumer because I like using reference (Intel) MBs with Intel CPUs. In fact, part of the reason I've stayed on the Intel side (despite the mistake known as the Pentium 4) is because Intel designed and manufactured their on own MBs. (I've use 855, 955, 975, P35, and P55 chipsets personally over the years since 2001). I knew with little doubt that their CPUs would work on their boards with little to no issues. All the MBs I ever owned have been rock solid. I like first-party products overall, actually.

This kinda reminds of when ATI stopped producing abd selling their own video card designs and just let their OEM partners bring actual products to market. I was saddened back then just as I am now with this kind of announcement. (For GPUs, I've since switched to Sapphire, FYI.)

On the other hand, I guess I should've seen this coming. Intel's consumer MB line up has been a mess ever since the LGA1366/1156 socket split for high-end vs mainstream. That split hoenstly screwed up a lot for the consumers since MBs were artifically differentiated by the weirdest availability of feature sets. (I'm also fairly pissed about the quick turnover of LGA1366/1156 with LGA2011/1155 in just one tick/tock cycle. 1366 to 2011 I can KINDA unsderstand, but what the hell drove the necessity of replacing 1156 with 1155? Was the new microarchitecture that different?) The Intel MB selection had really died down and was fairly limited since after the 9xx-series chipsets, IMHO. The mainstream boards were a little TOO basic (not much slection either) and the highend was oddly split between prosumer and enthusiast because of unique features sets not included in the other target demographic.

Anyway, an off-topic question before I rant anymore:Any rumors of Intel trying to create a heterogeneous CPU using both the Core and Atom microarchitectures, similar in idea to ARM's big.LITTLE?Reply

The Intel boards have generally been very electrically efficient. I'm writing this on a Intel MB machine (2500K CPU) in an Antec 300-65 case - that uses a 65 watt power supply for a reasonably-powerful desktop computer. I'm sorry to see them leave the market.Reply

The way I've read intel still doing socketed parts but at a slower cadence is that the tock will be mobile only; with new desktop parts only coming out for ticks. The last few tocks haven't really done much for the desktop after all. The main gains have been slightly better power efficiency which matters a lot more on mobile devices and a significantly better IGP which is mostly irrelevant to anyone building a desktop from parts. Reply

Not sure what to make of this announcement. On the surface it appears to be bad news.

But if Intel can make something great happen for Ultrabook and tablet FFRD it could get very interesting.

In the past I have been quite sad to see Intel Notebook Platforms like "Spring Peak" fade away without (as far as I can tell) a replacement. Maybe now Intel will finally have the resources allocated to make strides in this area?

It will be interesting to follow along over the next 3 to 5 years to see how closely Intel can close the gap between mobile white box and the proprietary OEM designs.Reply

Just get yourself a nice Asus or Gigabyte board like you have been doing for some time now anyways. Intel started to get interesting with the board pictured in the article above. But while exceptionally stable, most of their boards are unimpressive, jank and sub par mainly catering to OEMs.Reply

For the small system builder Intel provided the total package that you simply cannot get from any of the third party mainboard manufacturers;-

1. Best warranty including AWR cross ship advanced replacements, guaranteed to receive exactly the same model in replacement which is very important if you are putting systems into corporate or education markets

4. Stable image program giving a set of boards and drivers which will be supported for a minimum 18 months to give software image stability.

5. Niche products available in the channel, you try finding a Thin Mini ITX mainboard from another manufacturer outside of being bundled with some form of barebone aio or slim system (which defeats the point of Thin Mini ITX by the way)Reply

As a Gold partner since the program inception we are going to miss Intel's offering ofdesktop boards and all the other things you mentioned in your post.

I do not look forward to dealing with substandard motheboards from vendors who have NO idea what real techinical support and customer service is. Their biggest claim to fame is putting multicolored slots on their motherboards.Reply

Like a couple others said, guess I'll be in for an uphill battle when I need to build a system for a client that Just Works, without having to deal with strange problems and the latest SuperMagicTurboHappyEnerSaver garbage that I have to hunt down and disable for the box to run right.Reply

This is the part where I would disagree with Intel that they should exit the desktop motherboard segment. Intel has created standards for ATX and BTX mobo designs and later mini atx and itx designs. Now many manufacturers are creating desktop designs that are smaller than that in order to compete with the mac mini. Perhaps Intel should create a standard for micro desktop design that would compete with mac mini.Reply

Their desktop mobos have been average to poor for many years. They made their money with OE mainboards until the Asians took that away from them too. With their frequent design and manufacturing defects in mobos, chipsets and CPUs, it's no surprise that InHell is closing down their desktop mobo group.Reply

Yawn... Most people didn't buy Intel-branded boards, anyway, because they were overpriced relative to OEMs like Asus, MSI, etc. who have always sold the same thing or more for less $. IIRC, Intel has has been out of the Intel-branded motherboard retail market for longer than it has been in it. Outside of cpus, Intel doesn't do so well when it tries to sell its own brands at retail. Same thing happened with discrete gpus. Intel failed, packed its marbles and went home. Intel is a chip company that has always had trouble with retail products--something it is more than happy to leave to other companies. Bye-bye, again, bud. Hardly knew ye...;)

If processors are going largely or exclusively BGA with Broadwell then that means each motherboard model will have to be made and sold as a separate SKU with each compatible processor installed. That's a far, far less attractive business model than how motherboards are now. You no longer can crank out x number of boards and know that one board covers people building with 10 different CPU models. Instead you have to try and make the right number with each individual processor.

I can't imagine any mobo makers that aren't also supplying pre-built PC makers putting up with this for long to service the DIY/hobbyist market, unfortunately.Reply

Intel motherboards have always been poor performing, barren of features, lacking configuration options, and more expensive than other third party products that bring a significant amount more functionality to the table.

I mean really, as far back as the Celeron 300A era, nobody was buying Intel motherboards(especially your readership).

I challenge you to provide even *ONE* example of an Intel produced board that was relevant to your readership here. Something that every one of your readers would purchase over a competing equivalent product. Something that made your readers say something like: 'Damn, that 300A was something else if you put it on a BH6!'

I mean really, can you even cite a single example where you recommended an Intel motherboard over every other product to your readership? I can't remember any examples. The only thing I ever remember being said about Intel boards is that there are better options available. Reply

As we all know the trend with processors lately has been to move more and more of what used to be on the motherboard to the CPU. This would drive down motherboard costs and therefore profit. I think Intel sees the future better than we do and realizes the motherboard as we used to know it is evolving into more of a "place to connect the stuff."Reply

Intel is simply dropping its own retail motherboard sales--it isn't stopping the manufacture of socketed motherboards & retail cpus...;) BTW, surface-mount technology is back to the future--not the future. In the 1980's, everything was surface mounted. Wanted a new cpu in those days? Buy a new motherboard. Ugh!Reply